Ep. 24: The 3 Stooges' Super Baseball!
is the twenty-fourth episode of Gosei Sentai Dairanger. This is the second part of the saga of The Three Gorma Stooges and the first to establish their rivalry and connection with Shoji of the Heavenly Gravity Star. Synopsis Shoji takes up an offer of the Gorma Stooges to play them in a game of baseball, believing it will help them escape from the Gorma's service. Plot Shoji is riding his motorcycle with Rin, talking about how he's usually treated like a nuisance. Eventually, they come across Kameo, who is fleeing for his life and nearly gets run over. He informs them that there are a gravestone, a telephone and a motorcycle by the docks who accosted him. Knowing who he is talking about, the two Dairangers go and meet up with the Three Gorma Stooges, who are just standing around bored. Once they see Shoji and Rin, they grovel at their feet, begging for forgiveness. They explain they are leaving the Gorma, but Zydos has ordered them to challenge the Dairangers to a baseball match. If they win, they can get their freedom; if they lose, they will be destroyed, so they plead the Dairangers to lose purposefully. President Gravestone mentions how no one will listen to nuisances, striking a chord with Shoji, who decides to take them up on their offer, shaking Boss Kamikaze's hand as a pact between men. Rin is concerned that the Stooges may be lying, but Shoji is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Later, telephones start ringing nonstop all over the city (even after being picked up or disconnected), drawing the Dairangers' attention. When they pick up one of these phones, they hear Teacher Telephone's voice challenging them to the baseball game in one hour, or else the phones will never stop ringing. True to form, they show up at the ball park, where the Stooges have assembled a team with some Cotpotros. Kamikaze gives each of the Dairangers blue caps rigged with explosives, explaining that should they lose the game or try to take them off beforehand, they will explode. Shoji, however, knew of this arrangement beforehand, as he remembers Gravestone mentioning that the explosives are fake and will only release smoke if triggered, allowing the Stooges to make their getaway. Agreeing to this, the Dairangers transform and put the caps on, as well as the Gorma team with similar black caps, and the game is ready to start, with Kameo serving as the umpire. Gravestone bats first. He gives the Gorma team the advantage by knocking HououRanger and KirinRanger out of first and second bases, securing them. Later, when it comes Kamikaze's turn at the bat, he uses the "human pinball" technique, by batting the ball with such violence that it strikes down all the Dairangers, save for TenmaRanger at the pitching mound, before returning to Kamikaze, whereupon he bats a home run. Since the Gorma had the bases loaded, they score four points, with Kamikaze completing his run riding the Ryujin. At the interval between the turn change, TenmaRanger is starting to have doubts about this, but reassures his teammates that everything's alright and he can handle things. At the bottom of the fourth inning, the Stooges are still ahead 4-0 and the Dairangers already have one batter out. Kamikaze uses a super-fast pitching to try and take KirinRanger out, but he uses the Slow Footage technique to visualize the trajectory and hit; however, the ball came with such force that it is stuck to the bat, fizzling it out as its momentum keeps it spinning. Since he hit the ball, however, he heads out for the first base, while leaving the bat and ball with a Cotpotro, whereupon they blow up. ShishiRanger, in the meantime, dashes for the home plate, outsmarting Telephone by creating copies of himself which distract her as he makes the run, scoring the Dairangers' first point. As the game goes on, the situation does not change, and so they come to the bottom of the ninth with the score still 4-1 in favor of the Gorma, meaning the Dairangers will need a home-run with bases loaded to win the game; however, they have two out, and the responsibility falls to HououRanger, who is next up at bat. She steps up to the home plate turned back into Rin, but now wearing a short qipao and using her feminine wiles to throw off Kamikaze's pitching. It works; he pitches a dead ball to her thigh, and she takes the first base. KirinRanger comes next, with the same results. Next up is RyuRanger, who sends the ball away for a home run with his Lightning Slash; however, Kamikaze commands the ball to come back (fittingly, as he called it as a "boomerang ball") and explode upon contact with RyuRanger, taking him out of the game. With no batters left, all seems lost for the Dairangers, when KibaRanger makes his entrance, volunteering to bat in RyuRanger's place. The white Dairanger uses his Scattered Echo technique to hit the ball back with enough force to make the Cotpotros fumble the catch and the Dairangers to load the three bases. Finally, TenmaRanger steps up to bat, questioning whether Kamikaze is truly being honest about their compromise. He remembers the talk they had earlier, including Rin voicing her concerns, but is willing to trust them until the end. Thinking about this throws off his focus and he gets two strikes. Just as he is ready for the third strike, however, Kamikaze goes back on his word and throws the ball to the dugout, hitting RyuRanger, whereupon his cap flies off and explodes near TenmaRanger, hurting him hard enough to undo his Tenshin. Weakened but angry, Shoji tries to remind Kamikaze about the promise he made, but he cynically replies that it was made so long ago that he forgot about it. Incensed, Shoji stands up, and turns into TenmaRanger again out of sheer force of will. Willing to finish off the Dairangers, Kamikaze uses his Tornado Ball pitch, but TenmaRanger, angrily telling him to disappear, knocks the ball out of the park, causing his team to win the game and the caps on the Stooges' heads to explode for real. The three of them soon grow giant, to which RyuRanger and KibaRanger respond by forming the Ryusei-oh and Won Tiger, who combine to form the Kiba Daioh after Ryusei-oh bats some baseballs back at the Stooges with the Kiden Hiryukon. The Gormas' attacks are unable to faze the Kiba Daioh, which defeats them by knocking Kamikaze into the others, with TenmaRanger declaring they really are nothing but nuisances after all. Later, the Dairangers are playing baseball by themselves in a park (in a much tamer way, of course), when a stray ball rolls up to Shoji, who is lying a ways from his teammates. As they ask him to send the ball back, he instead throws it away angrily, shouting "Idiots!!!". Far from there, the Stooges, all beaten and patched up, feel like they heard someone calling them, but quickly decide they are just imagining things, as they hobble away concluding that, as nuisances, no one could care about them. Cast * : * : * : * : * : * : * : Guest Cast * : * : * : Errors *''to be added'' Notes *'Eyecatch' **'Featured Dairanger (Pre-Break):' TenmaRanger **'Featured Dairanger (Post-Break):' TenmaRanger *Although Kibaranger does appear in this episode, it's merely a suited actor voiced by Byakkoshinken (Wataru Abe). Kou does not return until episode 28 *The logos used for both the Stooges and the Dairanger are similar to those of actual baseball teams: **The stylized "G" used for the Gorma Stooges is similar to that of either the or Giants. **The stylized "D" for the Dairanger is the same used for the ; further, Shoji is seen wearing a Dodgers uniform throughout this episode. *When the Dairanger do their team pose this time, at one point they take a pitching stance instead of their typical kick movement; this is similar to a pitch stance used by Dynaman during their team introductions (With Dynaman being a team who is notable due to their uniforms and even helmets appearing similar to baseball uniforms). DVD releases *''Gosei Sentai Dairanger'' Volume 3 features episodes 21-30.http://www.toei-video.co.jp/DVD/dairenger.html *The complete Dairanger series was released in America by Shout! Factory in 2015. References Category:Gosei Sentai Dairanger Category:Sentai episodes Category:Written by Naruhisa Arakawa